


Take Me With You

by stellarparallax



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Season 8 divergent, Secret Admirer, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 13:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17809109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarparallax/pseuds/stellarparallax
Summary: Shiro knew that he was, generally speaking, a model citizen. He tried his best to be kind and understanding to everyone around him and he was always there for anyone who needed him. It didn’t even matter if it was a stranger or a friend. He was polite to all of his coworkers, even his subordinates. He paid all his bills on time and he had never been in debt to anyone in his life.Which is why he was inexplicably bewildered to find a note on his desk with the words “Take yourself out soon or I will” in letters cut out from magazines.





	Take Me With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faded_and_Fleeting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faded_and_Fleeting/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, Nashella! I hope you had a good one~

Shiro knew that he was, generally speaking, a model citizen. He tried his best to be kind and understanding to everyone around him and he was always there for anyone who needed him. It didn’t even matter if it was a stranger or a friend. He was polite to all of his coworkers, even his subordinates. He paid all his bills on time and he had never been in debt to anyone in his life.

Which is why he was inexplicably bewildered to find a note on his desk with the words “Take yourself out soon or I will” in letters cut out from magazines. Where the sender even got magazines  _ to  _ cut out was beyond him. He hadn’t seen a magazine in the flesh for a good decade or so. But that's besides the point. He’d received a threatening letter and he had to speak to his someone about it.

Except that he didn’t really want to. Sure, he was a tiny bit more nervous than usual, but he also didn’t want anyone to worry. Everyone was always worrying, keeping tabs on him. It was suffocating. God, and if Keith caught wind of it? He’d never let him out of his sight.

Which wasn’t exactly… a bad thing. He didn’t not like Keith’s company. In fact, he liked it a lot. They’d grown apart towards the end of the war and he was struggling to find an opening to spend more time with Keith. But this… this was not how he wanted things to go. He wanted to watch a movie snuggled up on the couch in the shack that Keith lived in with Krolia and Kosmo. If Keith knew that Shiro was getting threatening letters, he would be on guard the entire time. Where was the fun in that?

So he did what any other Admiral in his position would have done: roll out his sleeping bag and spend the night in his (locked) office. Obviously.

* * *

The next morning, he was roused by a barrage of knocks on his office door. Hair still in a mess, he scrambled to put his uniform pants back on. His uniform shirt was still hanging from his desk chair, but he figured that if it was urgent enough, they would be able to deal with his shirtlessness.

“Shiro, I have the reports that you— uhhh…”

Shit.

Keith opened his mouth as if to say something, but no words escaped. He sighed as he tightened his jaw into a confused look. “Did… did you sleep in your office?”

Shiro’s eyes darted, avoiding Keith’s gaze. “Maybe.”

“Shiro,” Keith sighed again, his voice laced with disappointment.

The air around him grew thicker as he struggled in vain to come up with an excuse that would put Keith at ease. He couldn’t. He knew that any lie he could think of wouldn’t fool annoyingly perceptive Keith. It was one of the things that he loved the most about Keith. Shiro was terrible at taking care of his own needs so he appreciated having someone around who would look out for him. 

“I was anxious about something… I guess.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

Keith’s eyes softened. “Come to me next time. Don’t spend any more nights in your office, okay?”

Shiro would be lying if he said that his heart didn’t swell.

“Okay.”

He took a step back to let Keith into his office. As Keith entered, he closed the door behind him. Why… why was Keith looking at him like that? 

Shiro cleared his throat.

Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Keith, what are you—”

“I like looking at your muscles as much as the next guy, but are you going to stay shirtless all day?”

“RIGHT!”

Shiro rushed over to his desk chair to get his uniform shirt, only then realising that he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Good lord, he was a mess that morning. He was so lucky that it was Keith that he was seeing, not Pidge or, God forbid,  _ Iverson _ . Iverson would have screamed his head off about impropriety and disrespect. Normally, even he would have agreed but he was not in the mood for a lecture that day. 

“You know what? Forget work. You need some time off,” Keith said.

Shiro scoffed.

“I mean it. Let me take you out.”

Suddenly Shiro remembered the note. He couldn’t… he couldn’t go out where there wasn’t security cameras in every corner watching to make sure that no one would be able to hurt him and get away with it. If he left the Galaxy Garrison, he could get hurt and the culprit may never get caught. Or worse, Keith could get hurt. He couldn’t let that happen. Not after Keith put his life on the line for Shiro time after time.

“No, no!” He laughed as he waved dismissively. “I have so much work, piles of them! Look at all this… stack of paper.”

“That’s a blank notepad. And this…” Keith waved around the folder that he was holding onto. “... is the final report that you had me reprint for submission after you looked over it last night…  _ remember _ ?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“So you’re free as a bird. Let’s go.”

“Yeah… NO! There’s… there’s still something that I need to do.”

“What?”

“I need to… get a gift!”

That gave Keith pause. Shiro released the breath that he didn’t realise he was holding.

“I get it. You want to look for Valentine’s day presents alone.”

“Wait, what?”

“Whoever it’s for is a lucky guy.”

“No, I mean—”

“Shiro, you don’t owe me an explanation. I just— good luck. Yeah.”

Keith placed the folder on Shiro’s desk and wordlessly crossed the room to get to the door. Before Shiro could say anything further, Keith had already slammed the door behind him. Shiro stood where he was, shirt still half-buttoned, feet still bare. If it was possible, he felt even more unsettled than he did the night before. 

“Nice going, Shirogane,” Shiro muttered under his breath.

* * *

Following that conversation, Shiro didn’t spend the night in his office again. Nothing particularly suspicious had happened since he received the note, so he assumed that it was just a prank by a disgruntled subordinate. He couldn’t imagine how he would have wronged them, though. Either way, he no longer got an adrenaline rush every time he stepped into his office.

Until the day he found an unmarked box on his desk in the morning.

His heart began to pound as he tried to figure out who it could possibly have been.  He walked over to check the windows. Locked. There were only one person other himself who had a key to his office: Keith and there was NO WAY that Keith would do that without telling Shiro beforehand. Right?

Suddenly, he heard someone call his name from the hallway. He jumped.

“Woah, woah, are you okay?” Lance said

“Haaah, Lance. Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” he said, knowing that his exasperated expression would betray him.

“Dude.” Lance walked into his office and closed the door behind him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!”

“Shiro, I’m not stupid. If I can’t help you with your problem at least you can… I don’t know… unload your burden on me. You know I’m here for you.”

Shiro appreciated the sentiment but he was also worried. If he told Lance about the box, Lance would want to stay with him as he opened it. But what if it was a bomb? He couldn’t let Lance get hurt because of him. Allura wouldn’t forgive him. He wouldn’t forgive himself.

But he did really need someone to talk to.

“Okay but, this doesn’t reach Keith, okay?” Shiro said softly.

“Sure.”

Shiro took a deep breath. “So a week ago—”

“—you finally realised that you’re in love with Keith,” Lance interrupted.

“Yes. Wait, what? NO!”

“Hmm.. maybe next week then,” Lance mumbled.

“I— Can we get back to my problem?”

“Yes.”

So Shiro told him. About the letter, the unmarked box, him sleeping in his office, him feeling too anxious to tell anyone. The more he spoke, the more… at ease he felt. For that, he was grateful that Lance was such a comforting presence. When he was done explaining the situation to Lance, he felt the tension he was holding in his shoulders dissolve.

“Wow… okay…” Lance started. “Well… I mean, I’m not trying to invalidate your worries or anything but… I mean, Valentine’s day is coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if you put a bunch of goal-driven, high-disciplined nerds together for years, they won’t exactly be the most suave people around.”

“You think that this is just… a really awkward secret admirer?”

“Well, security is terribly high around here. Pidge and I got pat down the other day for trying to bring pizza past security. I don’t think it’s an outsider,” Lance reasoned.

“What if it’s an insider?”

“Who’d want to hurt you?”

Fair.

“Are you feeling better?”

Shiro hesitated, then nodded. He wasn’t completely convinced about Lance’s theory but… he did feel better.

“Good. Do you want to open the box now?”

“Lance, what if—”

“Fine, I’ll open it. Move aside.”

“Wait!”

Lance crossed the room and ripped open the box on Shiro’s desk. Shiro held his breath.

“So, uh, can I tell everyone that I saw you shield yourself from chocolate?”

“What?”

Lance whipped around to show him the box of chocolate truffles.

“... Huh.”

He took the box from Lance and examined it closely. It was from his favourite brand of chocolate and it was he favourite type of truffles. Not many people knew that. In fact, the only people he could remember telling was Adam and… Keith.

_ No, it can’t be. _

“So, Shiro,” Lance said as he mimed taking off an imaginary pair of glasses, “I have deduced the identity of your mysterious secret admirer.”

“Uh… who?”

“It’s Keith.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, just because Keith has a key to my office and he comes to work before me and he knows my favourite chocolate and he does have an awkward way of wrapping and delivering gifts and… it doesn’t mean that it’s him, okay?”

“Wow… wow. I was going to say that I saw him buying that exact box of chocolates the other day when I was out with my mum but… Yeah, that just confirms it.”

“It’s not him! It has to be someone else!” Shiro’s face turned a deep scarlet.

Lance sighed. He waved Shiro over to stand next to him.

“Shiro, my man.” He put his arm around Shiro. “You see, when a man and a man love each other very much—”

“STOP!” Shiro wriggled himself out of Lance’s embrace. “There’s another reason, I know there is!”

“Are you familiar with Occam’s razor?”

“I— no, I refuse to believe it. It isn’t Keith!”

It just couldn’t be. Because if it was, it would mean that… it would mean that…

Wait.

What would it mean? If Keith had feelings for him, would he see Keith differently? No. Keith would always be Keith—the spitfire he mentored, the person he watched bloom right before his eyes, his confidante, his best friend, his hero…

The person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

_ Oh. _

“Uhm, Lance? Could you do me another favour?”

* * *

“Shiro, where are you taking me?”

“Patience yie—”

“Don’t even think of finishing that.” Keith elbowed him right in the gut, which was terrifyingly accurate for someone who was blindfolded.

“Okay, we’re here!”

Shiro untied the blindfold, careful not to accidentally tug at Keith’s hair. God, his hair was so soft. It was taking all the self-control he could muster not to bury his face in it.

_ Focus, Shiro, _ he thought.

Slowly, he peeled the fabric off Keith’s face to reveal two hoverbikes that he’d borrowed from the Garrison. He couldn’t help but laugh at the confusion on Keith’s face.

“Uhm. What?”

“I thought we could go somewhere together, you know, for old time’s sake.”

Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Please just do it. I can’t show you the other part of the surprise otherwise,” Shiro quickly added.

Keith smirked. “On three conditions: we take one bike, I drive...”

Shiro shrugged and followed Keith to one of the hoverbikes. After Keith hopped on, Shiro got on behind him.

“... and your arms go around my waist.”

_ Oh. _

Shiro’s entire body tensed up as his arms snaked around the front of Keith’s torso. Even then, he maintained a slight gap between his own chest and Keith’s back. Ultimately his plan was to ask Keith out but… he wasn’t prepared for any of  **this** . He took a deep breath, then another, trying to calm himself down.

Keith revved up the engine.

“Wait, I haven’t told you where to go!” Shiro gasped.

“What?”

“I HAVEN’T. TOLD YOU WHERE TO GO.”

“WHAT? CAN’T HEAR YOU, SHIRO. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO COME CLOSER!”

So he complied, pressing his chest against Keith’s back. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it but he thought that he felt Keith lean back into him.

“I haven’t told you where to go. Take a right—”

“Still can’t hear you! Why don’t you whisper it into my ear?”

The punk.

Shiro pressed his cheek close to Keith’s ear. “I haven’t— You know what, screw this. I love you, Keith.”

Keith slowed the hoverbike down, just enough that it was still moving but the engine wasn’t so loud that it prevented Shiro from hearing him say, “I know.”

Shiro wrapped his arms around him tighter.

“So, where do I go?” Keith said gently.

Shiro thought about how he had wanted to explore the caves where they first found the blue lion with him. How he had asked Krolia about the first time she met Keith’s father there. How he had asked for Lance’s help to pick out flowers for Keith. How none of that mattered because all he ever wanted was right in his arms. 

“It doesn’t matter. I’d go anywhere if I’m with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading to the end of the fic! I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it! I would really appreciate it if you left kudos and comments! <3
> 
> Come yell at me [@artparallax (twitter)](https://twitter.com/artparallax?lang=en)


End file.
